The Pentagon announced Monday that Marines from Camp Lejeune will be heading to Afghanistan later this month.

Washington (CNN) - Coalition forces can attain "success" in Afghanistan, but violence will likely increase as the approved troop surge moves forward in stabilizing the war-torn country, a top U.S. commander told a Senate committee Wednesday.

Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, predicted increased violence in spring 2010 and turmoil within the Afghan government as corruption is rooted out. Despite that, he told the Senate Finance Committee that "success" is within reach but will be difficult to attain.

Petraeus' appearance before legislators was the latest by top U.S. officials on Capitol Hill this week. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, testified before the Senate and House counterparts of the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, joined by Karl Eikenberry, the U.S.
ambassador in Kabul.

They were called to testify about President Barack Obama's new plan for the Afghan war, which involves the deployment of another 30,000 U.S. troops and a July 2011 date for the beginning of an American withdrawal.

soundoff(26 Responses)

Terri

So we ran out of Iraq because we couldn't win there...so...maybe Afghanistan will turn out different. Yeah! Different, that's it. How about we go back to Viet Nam and see if we can redo that...oh yeah...sorry...same thing. Politicians never learn, do they ?